You Lonely People
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: Daryl felt her loss like a physical thing, like his insides were falling out because she wasn't there to hold him closed anymore. After the attack on the prison, Daryl finds himself alone with a baby, so he retreats to the only place other than the prison that ever felt like home, because Judith was the only thing that mattered, now that she was gone. AU, post 4A. Eventual Bethyl.
1. Prologue: Keep on Begging, Beg for More

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Walking Dead. No copyright infringement intended.

Beta'd by lifelesslyndsey, who keeps my heart bloody in a box in her hall closet.

Author's Note at the bottom.

**...**

_You Lonely People_

Part One

Prologue

Keep on Begging, Beg for More

When tragic things happen, the mind splits time. There's Before, and then there's After, and that's when you know that nothing will ever be the same again. For Daryl Dixon this has happened three times over the course of his thirty-seven years.

The first when he was just nine years old and his mother died. The Before and After fall out from the fire was what served to shape him into the man he would eventually become. Before, even booze-soaked as she was, his mother would put herself in between Daryl and the Old Man, no matter how much Daryl wished that she would just stop. Wished that she would let him take it because he was a boy and he _could_. Instead of cleaning up her blood and resetting disjointed shoulders and wrapping ribs, not having to see that dead look in her eyes. But then she was gone- _really_ _dead- _and she couldn't stand in between them anymore. Daryl didn't have anyone to clean him up; his brother already long gone and off to parts unknown. It was the After that made him hard. That seeped iron into his heart until barely felt like it was beating in his chest at all. It was the After that made him survive, a survivor.

When he was thirty-four it happened again. Until that point, Daryl had been living a quiet, anonymous existence, and while he really had no idea of what happiness looked like, he was okay. He worked, he hunted, he disappeared into his mountain for days at a time. Merle would come around and they'd hit the dive bars, and they'd fight- the other drunks, each other. They'd occasionally get thrown in jail but the sheriff knew that it was no use trying to rehabilitate the Dixon boys. That cause had been lost the day their mama had gone up in flames, maybe even before that. But then the dead people weren't staying dead anymore and Daryl left his place in north Georgia and found his brother, until he lost him end of the world wasn't the splinter point- it hadn't even been when two assholes he didn't know from Adam told him that his brother had been _left behind_. Cut loose is what he read into it and Daryl wanted to kill them both, even though the one hadn't even been there. It didn't matter- he wanted to cut into their throats, bash in their faces- he wanted to make them _hurt _because he was hurting and fuck them if they thought that he would just lay down and take that.

It was on a rooftop in Atlanta, staring at his brother's severed hand when his time split again and a gaping canyon in the wake of an explosion was between the Before and the After. Everything changed again, but Daryl was always was able to adapt. After found him the foster in a new family, and as time passed, this After didn't taste so much like choking grief like the last had.

The third time blindsided him as much as the first. He'd never stopped believing that the Governor would come for them- an evil son of a bitch if he ever knew one, and if Daryl knew anything, it was sons of bitches. But he hadn't expected that he would stand to lose as much as he did. The Before was sidelong smiles and soft, gentle touches. It was teasing words that didn't cut and shared nights in a narrow cell bunk doing nothing but sleeping and sharing comfort with every breath that passed between them. The After was incomparable. Worse than losing his mother, worse than losing his brother- with them, Daryl had always been guarded. Pulling the coat of strength and unwavering loyalty tight around him, like the faithful family hound; he was there to growl and bark at the dangerous strangers and too stupid to realize that that's _all _he was.

But this, with her, he'd torn his chest open and let her see his heart but only after knowing that she would do the same. And she did, the small, half-smile that was burned into his brain curling around her lips as she laid her head over that very gaping wound, soft hands pushing the flesh together, closed. And then there was panic, confusion and soul-deep painful screaming and she was _gone_. At least after the others, he'd known somewhere deep in the back of his mind that he would be able to survive, that he'd live, just out of sheer spite in the face of a world that had seemed to make it its personal mission to gaslight him. But Daryl felt her loss like a physical thing, like he was ambling around no better than the walkers, his insides falling from that inflamed wound in his chest where they'd both worked to claw him open because she wasn't there to hold it in anymore.

Daryl was lost in this After, and he didn't think he would ever be found.

**0-YLP-0**

**Author's Note: **So. Started a new Deth (or Bethyl) story, and this is the prologue. It's kind of sad and filled with many FEELS, but it will get happier. That's a filthy lie. It will have happier _moments_ and happier _times_, but- yeah. However, I'm a firm believer in HEA endings and am enraged by anything other, so that you can count on if you can muscle the story out.

Part one is written. The story will be made up of five parts, four chapters each, each chapter roughly 3k long, so all in all, this story should be around 60k when finished. Updates will be weekly, BUT I will only update when each part is finished. So hopefully over the span of the next four weeks of part one, I can finish part two so we have a smooth reading ride.

The title is from the Candlebox song "You". I don't own it, or any lyrics from said song that I may use.

**Graveyard Train readers: **A new story doesn't mean GT is abandoned, I was just kind of blindsided with this one and shifted my attention for a while. GT will be updated before too awful long.

So drop me a line, kids. Let me know what you're thinking/feeling. Do you want to find me now and burn my house down, or are you a masochist like me and just _love _the pain of it?

-Mrs. Monster


	2. 1: It's for You, Only You

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Walking Dead. No copyright infringement intended.

Beta'd by lifelesslyndsey, whose initial reaction to the first part of this story I sent her to read was, "Whoa. Slow down there, Satan."

Author's note at the bottom.

**...**

_(You_

_It's for you_

_Only you_

_It's for you_

_I'll never know_

_I'll never care_

_I'll never believe my people_

_I'll tell you what I say_

_I'll never lie_

_I'll never try_

_I'll never cry for you people_

_I'll push you_

_Push away_

_As you lonely people_

_Keep on running 'round my door_

_Yes, you lonely people_

_Keep on begging_

_Beg for more_

_And I'll cry for you_

_Yes I'll die for you_

_Pain in my heart, it is real _

_And I'll tell you now how I feel inside_

_Feel in my heart it's for you_

_It's for you_

_Only you_

_It's for you)_

Chapter One

It's for You, Only You

The Governor is dead, finished off with a bullet from a woman Daryl had never seen before. The screaming chaos from the attack draws in a suspended breath and when she walks away, everything is silent. Daryl doesn't know if it's from this pressure that's building up in his head or if it actually is quiet. He turns his eyes away from the Governor's dead body without second to even think _good riddance_ and finds that he's alone and everything is burning. Daryl takes off at a run, heart dropping low in his stomach and throbbing there as he searches.

Where in the hell is she?

He told her, he _always_ told her, that if something- _anything_- happened she needed to come and find him. To stick with him, and that no matter what they'd be okay if they stayed together.

But through the haze of smoke and rippling of heat in the air, there's no one. He stops and crouches low, the acrid black thick enough that it's making breathing difficult and that's when he sees something else.

Judith's car seat.

It's sitting on the cracked cement of the basketball court, facing away from him and Daryl just _can't_. He can't look, not if there's even a chance that Judith is strapped inside bloody. But he has to, because there's a fifty/fifty chance that if she's inside, she may be alive. Daryl chokes on smoke and fear but he's crawling ahead under the thick gray drifting from the rolling cloud of black.

His hands are shaking and dirty with blood when his fingers brush against the plastic and fabric of the car seat. There's a grinding, crunching sound as he turns it.

At first he thinks that she's dead. There's no blood, but smoke inhalation or anything else could have stolen her- he wouldn't put it passed some of those bastards to snap a baby's neck without a blink. Then he finally parts his panic enough to notice the rise and fall of her tiny chest and he feels dizzy with the relief of it. She's _asleep_.

Without second thought he unstraps the gray safety belts and brings her to his chest, dripping blood and filth onto the fabric left behind. Her heartbeat is a steady thrum of comfort and Daryl holds the baby's sleeping form tight to his chest.

A few feet away the baby bag is laying on its side, diapers spilling out onto the ground where someone had dropped it. Dropped _Judith_. _Left_ her. A curl of rage blacker than the smoke from the burning watchtower fills him up to the brim and his fingers skate down the baby's onesie covered back, needing the knowledge that she was alright. Daryl breathed deep, inhaling a mouthful of ash, and he knows that he has to get Judith out of here. Their home is burning down around them, and they need to get _out. _

Moving swiftly, Daryl has to step around bodies and debris. Judith is pressed to his front, her bag over his shoulder and his bow on his back. It takes time to get to the area where they keep the cars and he'll admit that he watched for her the entire way, maybe not moving quite as quickly as he could have. Should have.

She's nowhere.

He takes the minivan they'd kept packed with supplies and it occurs to him just then that the bus is gone. At least a few of their people made it out and he can only hope that she's with them. Daryl lays Judith's still sleeping form on the front passengers seat and curses himself for leaving the car seat behind. The key is on the ring still hooked to his belt loop and Daryl hauls ass through the main front gate.

They'd never settled on a place to meet up if something like this were to happen and he has to laugh at that. What kind of morons were they? Were they really that arrogant? They'd packed vehicles for emergency situations, but had no real contingency plan in place. They'd gotten complacent, even with the lingering paranoia that each of them lived with. The last tangle with the Governor hadn't been a picnic, but they'd come out on top with a reasonable ease, and they'd been fools to think that any second attack would be the same as the first.

The tires of the minivan ate up the miles as Daryl put as much distance between he and Judith and the prison as he can stand. He kept one hand on her soft belly, holding her in place on the passengers seat and she was beginning to stir awake. He'd have to stop and find somewhere for them to hide soon. When he's about ten miles away, Daryl sees a dirt off-road and follows it to a clearing that had at one point probably been for camping.

Judith is screaming at the top of her lungs- hungry, wet and able to sense the tension and turmoil in Daryl. Every wail grates at his nerves. He pulls her against his chest again and shoves out of the van, trying to hold her in spite of her squirming. Her cries are echoing around the trees and Daryl casts a quick look around as he opens the back hatch and pulls her bag to him. The middle and back rows of seats of the van have been laid down and there are pillows and blankets folded and pushed against the front seats, six gallons of water, medical supplies, a paper grocery bag of canned food and probably three or four pistols hidden between the folds of the blankets. It would get them by for a few days, but if he didn't find the others- it wasn't something he wanted to think about with Judith's screams reaching a fever pitch.

The bag had been packed with both disposable and cloth diapers, but Daryl had only changed her with disposable before. He'd eventually run out and have to figure how to put the cloth ones on her without stabbing her with a fucking safety pin. Pressure and panic rose in his throat like bile, but he pushed it back down- he had to get her fed and quiet before she attracted walkers or deserters from the Governor's ranks. Daryl shoved the wet cloth diaper into the front pocket of the baby bag and got Judith powdered and strapped into a disposable one and set about fixing her a bottle of formula. He knew that _she_ had been feeding the baby table food for a long time, but a bottle was the easiest way to get Judith quiet. And Daryl didn't have anything to mash any of the canned food with, even if Judith had been calm enough to eat.

He sat in the back of the van, feet propped on the lip with Judith in his lap as she sucked the formula down, little sobbing gasps interrupting her slurps. In the quiet, Daryl let himself think about what needed to be done. He'd always operated better if he had a goal, a battle plan. Right then, his goal was to find his girl. He just needed his battle plan.

Search for the others is an obvious place to start. If it took him too long to find her or anyone else and decide on a course of action, he'd have to start planning himself. He'd need to find a source of water, _clean _water. The few gallons in the van would probably last a couple days, with feeding Judith and keeping himself hydrated, but eventually it would run out. Shelter- the van would do for a little while, but he couldn't live in a car with a baby for too long.

But that was all assuming that he didn't find anyone from the prison in the next few days. Any of _their _group. Daryl knew that it was probably irrational, but he didn't want any of the strays at his back. He needed people he knew, and trusted. He needed _her_.

He _needed _her.

Daryl already missed her calming touch and softly commanding presence. It had only been an hour or so since he'd been handing her a semi-automatic rifle- was that all? It seemed like days now. But he already felt himself rotting on the inside. Daryl was by no means melodramatic; he'd gone days without being around her before, but now he didn't _know_. Before, he'd been confident in her security, in the faith that the people at the prison would keep her safe. But now? He had no idea.

The bastard on the tank could have cut her up. Or she could have been bitten and taken herself out- he knew that was her plan if it ever happened. There were so many faceless men and women who had invaded their home that could have done any number of things to her.

Beth was a fighter, but not in a physical sense. She was strong, but not in a matter of muscle.

The baby had fallen back into an exhausted sleep in his lap. Daryl slid to his feet and held her with one arm as he shook out a few of the blankets and used a pillow to make a small bed for her. He laid her down and she stirred with a scrunched face before settling again. Judith was okay, she was alive and he knew that that's what she would have worried about the most, now that her daddy was gone. He could do this for Beth- he could protect Judith until they were all back together again, and even beyond. If they had to raise the girl as their own, so be it. Judith was going to fucking _make it_, even if it killed him seeing that it happened.

His muscles went weary with the crash of adrenaline and Daryl locked all of the doors on the van before crawling into the back with Judith, curling around her tiny body. He didn't bother with a blanket, just pulled the back hatch closed and locked them in completely. A few hours of sleep, it was all he needed. He'd be no good to either of them half dead with exhaustion.

…

When Daryl was a kid, in the summer when he wasn't up on Wolfpen Ridge or running around with the other kids in his neighborhood, he used to walk across Blairsville to their tiny library. Everyday he'd sneak out after stealing something for breakfast and he'd stay until the librarian kicked him out at closing time. It wasn't that reading was his favorite thing in the world, but sometimes it was just too hot to be outside while the sun was up and burning, and he sure as hell didn't want to be around when his old man stumbled his way out of his bedroom, whoever he'd brought home from the bar the night before hanging off him wearing hardly anything at all. These women always smelled like heavy perfume, beer and something else that at thirteen, Daryl wasn't able to identify right away yet. They always tried to talk to him, ruffle his hair with their talon-like nails, talk sweet to him like they thought they'd ever have the good fortune to go to bed with Luther Dixon again. Daryl learned to just avoid home in the mid-morning to late afternoon when his old man would give the brush off and the high-pitched screaming and cussing would start. Things like _'no good, man-whoring son of a bitch' _and _'you don't know what the fuck you're missing out on, Dixon, but you'll sure as hell never get a piece of this ass again' _followed up by _'that was the point, you dumb bitch,' _were oldies but goodies and it all made Daryl want to curl up into himself with embarrassment.

So he'd leave. The library was air-conditioned and quiet and Daryl would spend the day reading old copies of _National Geographic_ and drinking from the water fountain to fill his empty belly.

One time, when they were sitting up in the north watchtower, shoulder-to-shoulder with their weapons, Daryl told Beth that story. She had been talking about going to the library with her momma when she was a kid, back in Senoia. Daryl liked it when she talked, didn't mind stories about her upbringing that was so different than his own, and he was getting better about the whole exchange of information thing. She told him that it was no wonder he had trouble getting involved with women, with anyone, if that was the example of romance and sex he had. Beth had put her hand on his knee and leaned her head against his arm and told him that she would wait as long as he needed. Daryl thought that was kind of backward- wasn't it usually supposed to be the guy that did the waiting? She'd laughed and asked since when had anything about them been _usual_?

It was one of dozens of memories that he was fighting his way through as he geared up the morning after the attack. He needed to be planning, try and figure out where the best place to start looking would be, but kept getting blindsided by little things that made him think of her. Like making a papoose for Judith out of one of their blankets- something he'd learned to do out of one of those outdated copies of _National Geographic_ that he'd read in the library all those years ago. He needed to pull himself _together_. He had people to find and a baby to take care of and Daryl needed to tighten it the fuck up.

Judith was drooling onto the soft flannel of his shirt as Daryl hooked his crossbow over one shoulder and her bag over the other. He'd have to go on foot- if any of their group had scattered into the woods, taking the car would be useless. The best way to start would be from where they were now, and then work his way toward the prison.

It was infinitely harder to move through the trees like a shadow when he had a baby strapped to his front. Taking walkers out up close was too risky so Daryl ended up spending a lot of time playing fetch with his bolts, but thankfully his aim wasn't affected by Judith's squirming limbs. As they get closer to the prison, he finds fallen walker bodies but no living people and if Daryl had ever let himself feel hope, it would be flickering.

**0-YLP-0**

Author's Note: So, chapter one, which now gives us an update schedule of Wednesday mornings. Good, I like Wednesdays.

**Thanks to: **mamareadstomuch2, fggt16, K. Lynn Perks and DarylDixon'sLover for reviewing the prologue, and to everyone that put YLP on alert.

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents, shit's about to get real. See you next week!


	3. 2: I'll Never Know, I'll Never Care

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Walking Dead. No copyright infringement intended.

Beta'd by lifelesslyndsey. Most of this story was hashed out with her over tea at my dining room table.

Notes: You're all so optimistic about this story. It's adorable. I feel that I should point out that things at the prison didn't quite go the way they did in S4 here. **Warning for major character death. **See you on the other side, kids.

More notes at the bottom.

**...**

Chapter Two

I'll Never Know, I'll Never Care

Four hours in he has to stop to feed and change Judith, give her a break from the papoose. Daryl spreads the blanket right on the soft forest floor and lays her down to change her. Judith's chubby fists grab at the bottle he pulls out of the bag and she makes coo-ing little noises as he hands it over. Leaves rustle under him as he settles down beside her, careful to keep his boots off the blanket. Wide blue eyes stare up at the canopy of trees as she sucks the formula down and Daryl knows he'll have to find a way to get her actual food soon. Beth had told him almost a month ago that she was too big to live off of a formula-only diet. She needed other things, other vitamins and crap, more solid food to keep her belly full. Fruits, vegetables. Meat soon enough.

He was on the very edge of being overwhelmed, but he shook it off. He could _do _this.

Once Judith was finished with the bottle he packed it back away with the few others he'd pre-made back at the van. She rolled over onto her stomach and pushed up on her hands and knees. Daryl spun a dead leaf between his fingers as she rocked back and forth- getting ready to crawl, Beth had told him over the edge of the parenting book she'd gotten from somewhere. Dimpled fingers grabbed fist-fulls of the blanket and Judith's face turned red as she grunted, frustrated over not being able to get anywhere. After awhile they had to get moving again, so he wrapped her back up, wrapped the blanket around his own body and across again to tie under Judith's butt. She yawned and pressed her face into his dirty flannel shirt, eyelids going heavy. He hadn't covered more than a mile before she was fast asleep.

By the familiar surroundings Daryl knew that he wasn't more than five miles away from the prison. Walker bodies practically blanketed the forest floor by this point and that hope that sputtered earlier in the day flared to life again when he saw Tyreese maybe twenty feet ahead, kneeling on the ground. He didn't want to sneak up on the man in the middle of all this carnage, so Daryl called out as he began weaving through trees toward the hunched over but unmistakeable figure.

"Hey! Ty!" Daryl barely raised his voice, but it got Tyreese's attention.

He could tell by the set of Tyreese's shoulders as he straightened up that something wasn't right and really, he should have guessed it. He'd just been so relieved to see a familiar body, knew that with Ty at his back they could make it easy, that he hadn't stopped to think.

Tyreese looked over his shoulder, jaw working, teeth flashing. The blood that covered his face was indistinguishable from the blood and gore that dripped down his chin, his neck and soaked the front of his white shirt. And Daryl knew what happened.

Someone had beaten Ty to death and left him to come back. Left him to _this_. Daryl couldn't stop the glance down at Judith. _Left behind_. Abandoned.

Ty began shoving to his feet and Daryl raised his bow. It would have to be the bow. It felt cheap, Ty deserved better, but he couldn't get close enough with Judith to do it by hand like it should have been. The bolt landed true even as his hands shook, between the eyes, and Ty dropped hard.

It wasn't until he approached -not to retrieve the arrow, Daryl didn't want it back- but maybe mourn for a few brief moments over his fallen brother, that he had to turn his head to the side and shift Judith away. Bile rose in his throat and if Daryl had eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours he would have thrown up. Whoever the bastard was that had done this had better wish they were dead, because Daryl swore if he got his hands on them first they would be wishing for a walker to come along and rip them apart.

The two little girls from the prison, Lizzie and Mika, the ones that Carol had taken under her wing after their daddy died, were splayed on their backs, legs twisted awkwardly underneath of them. Twin bullet holes had leaked sticky scarlet down their faces, sooty-black where the barrel of a gun had been pressed to their heads.

Forced to their knees and shot execution style while Ty laid dying, watching.

The breath that Daryl forced down scraped his throat and scratched his lungs like it was made of broken glass. Once he was sure nothing was going to come up, he brought Judith tight to his chest, tears stinging his eyes.

Their bellies were torn into, red viscera and small ivory bones exposed to the elements. Like finding Judith's car seat back in the prison yard, he just _couldn't_. But this time there was no fifty/fifty. He knew they were gone, and so Daryl did something he'd never once in his life done.

He ran away.

…

Daryl makes it to the tree-line around the prison, pictures of Lizzie and Mika burning his brain every time he blinks. Judith is awake and moving against him, babbling baby talk as she pulls at his shirt and sometimes on his beard. He doesn't mind; she's content, she knows the smell of him and he used to hold her like this back at the prison, when Beth needed a break.

The fires have nearly burnt themselves out and Daryl scans the open field for any movement. He spots Hershel's beheaded body, chewed nearly down to the bones and only identifiable by the missing leg and white-bearded head laying just next to it. The Governor's body is in nearly the same condition not too far away.

Daryl wants to go and piss on his fucking corpse.

The walkers roaming the field are lazy and slow with their fullness and there aren't as many as he thought there would be. Most of them probably found their way into the yard and even further into the prison. Daryl would be lying to himself if he tried to say that the thought of going into cell block C didn't cross his mind.

Some of the others could have fought their way back inside. Beth or any of them could have locked themselves into a cell- Carol had done it before, and she could have again. There would be more supplies and his Triumph, maybe even-

A sharp tug on his beard brings him back to reality and he knows that he can't- _won't_- risk Judith's life. Not on an idea that is foolish at best, suicidal at worst. He pets a hand down the blanket covering her back and turns away from the prison. They need to get back to the van. He'd left a clear enough trail, one of their group could have followed it and found the familiar vehicle. And there was that fucking hope again.

Before Beth, hope hadn't even been a lost cause to him. It was as foreign as Russia to Daryl and just as out of reach. If this was what _feeling _and _caring_ did to him in crisis situations, she could just keep it.

No one was waiting for them back at the clearing where the van was parked, not that Daryl really expected there to be. The area hadn't been disturbed so he locked himself and Judith in the back of the van again, laying her down in the bed he'd made her the night before. His stomach was a strange combination of hunger, disappointment, the craving for a smoke, anger and sadness. Finding Ty like that had struck him with a wariness he hadn't had before, but- what if he found Beth's dead body? Or Carol's, or Carl's? Or worse, what if they had turned? Merle had been bad, but Daryl had been preparing for his brother's death for years, and by that time he'd already mourned for him once.

He didn't have any doubts on his ability to put them down. What worried him was the _after_. He already felt like he was decaying slow from the inside out not _knowing _whether she was alive or dead- what would happen to him if he did find her, only to have to kill her?

Judith kicked out in her bed, red-faced and gearing up for a full blown fit if he didn't see to her soon. Her onesie was dirty from wearing it all night and tromping around in the woods all day, so after he got her in a fresh diaper he swapped it for a clean one; pale green with little yellow ducks printed all over it. Daryl settled her with a bottle and began rummaging in the paper grocery bag of cans. He could open a can with his buck knife, no problem. Feeding a baby with a buck knife on the other hand was an entirely different ballgame. Judith needed something other than formula, though, so he would have to figure something out.

Leaving her slurping on her bottle, Daryl ducked out of the van and scrubbed his hands as best he could, trying to use as little of their water as possible. Using his knife, he pried a can of pears open, drank the juice down and crawled back in next to her, leaving the back hatch open this time. Once she was finished with her formula, Daryl could tell that she still wasn't satisfied. He toed off his boots and sat her facing him in the circle of his legs and fished a pear out of the can.

He smiled at the way she zeroed in on the fruit, making a grab for it as she pushed against his legs. She started teetering to the right and he nudged her back up with his knee. Daryl told himself again that he could do this, he could take care of Judith. He could keep her safe. She was their new beginning, born into this world and she would beat it too. Tearing off a chunk of pear, Daryl mushed it between his fingers and hand fed it to her, watching close for any sign of choking. She gummed it down and smiled at him- more like at the food- but Daryl felt no satisfaction at the victory. It was a bittersweet thing, but at least he could rest with the knowledge that she wasn't going hungry on his watch.

…

After that he worked in circuits around the prison, moving from the camp site inward, avoiding the place where he'd left Tyreese and the girls. Their water supply was dwindling and he'd have to find a way to replenish it within the next few days or they'd run out. He covers about a two mile radius the first day, and on the second he finds more of his people.

Sasha, Bob, Maggie. _Carol_. Riddled with bullet-holes, at least whoever had done this had given them the dignity of a single shot to the head. When he finds his best friend's body twisted underneath Sasha's something not so small inside of Daryl breaks and it's only the baby on his front that keeps him on his feet. Tears come unchecked and Daryl spreads Judith's blanket out for her so that he can move his dead. He keeps her in sight the entire time, and she rolls on her back clutching her own feet not five feet away from the dead bodies of three of the women who had helped take care of her not even a week before.

He lays them out, side by side, closing their eyes and arranging their limbs and by the time he gets to Bob the tears have stopped. What goes through him as he looks down at the army medic's body is undefinable- it's like a peal of lightening followed close by the roar of thunder and he thinks that maybe Bob was a curse. Like a plague, destroying anyone he came across. The groups he was with before, and now them. Daryl had been right that day at the vet college.

He should have kept going the day he found Bob.

Casting another look to Judith- she was rolling from side to side, trying to find the source of the bird-sound coming from the trees- he covered his sisters from toe to chin with leaves. Daryl would have liked to bury them proper, but he didn't have the ways or means to do so.

Bob remained uncovered.

He was being irrational again, and he knew it. Beth would have been ashamed. He just couldn't help it, could help the sickness that was growing in his belly every-time he looked at the man. Judith lost interest with the bird-sounds and rolled to her belly as he sat next to her and rested a hand on her back. His hand was dirty, nails broken from chewing on them, callouses making his palm and fingers hard from a lifetime of hard work. It covered Judith's entire back and the contrast with her pastel onesie was stark. Daryl felt guilty as he looked at Carol's upturned face- he should have been more worried about her, looked harder for her, instead of getting swallowed up in his fear for Beth. She had been one of two people who had known about his and Beth's relationship, the other laying next to her just as dead. And she had been their only supporter- Maggie hadn't approved in her sister's choice of men. Daryl couldn't blame her. If he'd had a little sister, he wouldn't have wanted her with a guy like him either. It had caused tension between the Greene girls, and now when he found Beth (_if_) he would have to tell her that her sister was dead. She'd just lost her daddy and her home- this on top of it would be a hard blow to take. But he knew Beth, knew that she would roll with the punches and come out on top, no matter what. At least, he hoped so. God, did he hope so.

…

Three days later found them out of water and abandoning his search of the area around the prison. He'd gone out every day at sunrise, and didn't return until sunset and had never seen a sign of anyone else, dead or alive. Daryl sat Judith up in the passengers seat, buckled her with the lap belt and stuffed pillows around her, driving with one hand on her belly, the other gripping the wheel.

There was a town another few miles out, near the daycare center he and Maggie had cleaned out and at the very least he'd be able to find water there. The water systems were still running even if none of the others were, so he'd be able to fill up the empty jugs and maybe find a place to bunk down for the night. He kept an eye out for the bus, or another of their cars, but there was nothing. They rolled into town without seeing a single living soul and parked with the busted up cars along what looked like the main business district. Daryl strapped Judith to his chest again so he'd have both hands free and began working his way down the street.

It was a mangle of stores; woman's clothing, craft store, junk shop, a hardware store, a flower shop and at the end on the corner, an Exxon that had probably been abandoned for at least a decade _before _the world ended, but seemed mostly untouched. More than the others, at least. The other side of the street looked to be much of the same, so Daryl shouldered into the Exxon and found the bathroom. When he pushed the door open, the stink of burned hair and charred _meat _nearly knocked him over. He guessed that someone else had come across it and taken shelter, roasting some poorly cleaned animal to eat before moving on. Daryl propped the door open both to let in more light than was streaming in through the high window over the toilet and so he wasn't trapped with that smell and started filling the jug he'd brought with him. He'd have to go back to the van and move it closer to the gas station, easier transport of the heavy water, but what came from the tap was clear and clean so he figured it was worth it.

There was a pool of blood that was dried black on the white tile floor and Daryl skirted it as he lugged water back and forth- must have been from whatever was cooked in here. It seemed like a lot of blood to have come from some critter, but Daryl didn't pay it much attention.

At least not until he spotted the rag balled up in the corner by the trashcan that was built unto the wall. Or he thought it was a rag until he nudged it with the toe of his boot and it uncurled into a familiar looking dark tank-top. Daryl dropped the jug of water and it split as it hit the tile, spilling the liquid gold all over the floor. He didn't care. Just dropped down to the floor and picked the shirt up, letting it dangle from his finger by a strap. It was covered with blood and what looked like vomit.

It was Beth's. Of that, he had no doubt.

Still laying on the floor where he'd picked the shirt up was a clump of white-blonde hair stained with more of _her _red. He knew that it was her blood, just as he'd known that it'd been too much to have come from any small animal.

The soft, worn fabric shook right along with his hands and Daryl fell back onto his ass, bringing a startled cry from Judith. He barely heard her. Spilled water soaked into his pants and pooled with her blood, washing it a pale-pink color as it ran from there to the drain set in the middle of the floor.

Daryl couldn't breathe.

Like someone had their hands around his throat, _squeezing _the life out of him. Judith's crying became _hers_ and his chest was tight, so tight as he could swear he felt his heart stutter to a stop. He couldn't breathe- Beth was _dead_- and now so was he. Black danced at the edges of his vision, painting in on the pool of blood that had trapped him.

A flailing limb connected with his chin and it was only then that he remembered Judith, screaming and crying because he'd wrapped his fist into the back of her blanket along with Beth's shirt. He tore his eyes away from the puddle of _her _and took in the little girl with the scrunched up, red face, fat tears rolling down her face. Air rushed into his lungs with in a shattered gasp and before he could take a next one, Daryl turned his face and vomited onto the tile. He held Judith aside as much as he could and it splashed up from the wet floor to splatter along his side.

He's crying now and doesn't know when he started. Clutching Judith to him, Daryl pushes back against the wall and keeps Beth's shirt tight in one fist. She's gone and he doesn't know what to do.

All of his plans had been find _Beth_ and then they'd- fill in the blank. She _was_ the plan. She was the glue that held him together. But she was gone, the certainty was as real to him as the baby he held, and he doesn't know what to fucking _do_.

Fuck rotting- Daryl felt like he'd been _eviscerated_. His innards weren't decaying. They were spilling all over that white tile, splashing in her blood and his vomit. Fuck rotting, he'd take that over _this. _Most of all _fuck_ hope.

It was as dead as she was.

**0-YLP-0**

Author's Note: If you made it through that, _stop_. Take a deep breath. In through the nose, hold it, now out through the mouth. It'll be okay. This is a _Bethyl _story, remember? And it's all in Daryl's POV, so we only get what he knows, and what he knows is being piled on top of a pretty bleak situation, so- yeah. Dude's in a bad place. Stay with me, now.

**Thanks to: **DarylDixon'sLover, K. Lynn Perks, Kuddhu, Incog Ninja, Guest, fggt16, mamareadstomuch2, Crazy and Free, wytchbiker, secretfunnelcake, torijamison, Faye Kinitt, Lady of Sign and Red Roses Blue Roses for reviewing since the last update. Even more thanks to anyone who has added YLP to their alerts/favorites.

Next chapter, **"I'll Cry for You, I'll Die for You"**, out next Wednesday!


	4. 3: I'll Cry for You, I'll Die for You

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Walking Dead. No copyright infringement intended.

Chapter Three

I'll Cry for You, I'll Die for You

He doesn't know how much time he wastes there, in that gas station, in that bathroom. Could've been days, weeks- minutes for all he knew. His baby cried endlessly, like she _knew _too. And how could she not? Beth had been her mother in all but blood. _Blood_. They were surrounded by it. Daryl fed her, he changed her, but the crying never stopped.

He forced himself to suck it all back in. Judith was all he had left now, and she was the thread he used to sew himself back together, to hold in the heart that he'd left exposed, waiting for Beth to come back and keep it for him. That was never going to happen now. He had to keep going. Not for himself, he didn't matter. He was just a good-for-nothing Dixon who hadn't even managed to save his own family, any of them. He had to keep going for Judith, and not for himself either. For Beth.

**...**

Daryl had been born and raised in Blairsville, up at the very north boarder of Georgia. But he hadn't _lived _there. He hadn't gotten his first taste of life until he'd left home at seventeen and bunked in a tiny ass apartment over an auto-shop whose owner had taken enough pity on the dirty kid with the bruised up face to hire him. _Life _had begun in Suches, twenty miles or so from Blairsville. He'd been nineteen when he rented the house on the outskirts of town, as close to Wolfpen Ridge as he could possibly get, and by the time the world ended seventeen years later, he owned it. That, his bow and the beat to hell blue and white truck were the only material things that had ever really been _Daryl's_ That's what he was going to go back to now. He'd take Judith north to Suches because it was the only place besides the prison that had ever felt like _home_.

It was just Judith now. She was the only thing that mattered; she was the ultimate goal. She was the only future he could see.

…

The trip to Suches should have only taken a few hours. Four, at most. Daryl had had to liberate a map from the Exxon and plot the course, and they were only about a hundred and forty miles away. Easy.

But nothing could ever be easy. They hadn't been on the road an hour, Judith in the passengers seat surrounded by her pillows, when she began to cry again. She hadn't stopped, really, it had just exhausted down into a little whine; the ferocity when she started up again surprised Daryl and he pulled off to the side of the road, sliding his seat back and pulling the baby into his lap. She was pale, but her cheeks were flushed bright red.

And then she started coughing.

It was a tiny hacking sound, like a cat trying to work up a fur-ball and it scared the shit out of him.

Back at the prison, before the Governor had come back, before it felt like the world ended a second time, there had been a sickness. No one really knew what it was- most likely just a regular cold that had spiraled out of control against their weakened immune systems. It had claimed a good number of their people, and the kids had only been saved by Beth locking them all down and away from everyone else. It spread like wildfire through the rest of them, and it was only after Daryl himself and a group of others broke into a vet college and brought back some powerful medicine that it cleared up. Or had started to clear up- there had still been bed-ridden people in the sick ward when the prison had been attacked. Daryl supposed those people were dead now, too.

It had all started with a cough.

Daryl pressed his hand to Judith's forehead and found it burning hot. He swore, colorfully and loudly, panic once again welling up inside of him. He knew better than to ask if _it was too much for them to just catch one fucking break_, because he knew it was. Things like fate and lucky breaks were for the weak, and if there was one thing Dixon's were not, it was weak.

Judith screamed, flailed her arms, kicked her legs, cheeks getting redder but her face staying that ghost pale. This time, though, Daryl knew what he had to do. He may not have a lot of experience with kids, but he had listened to Hershel and Dr. S back when folks at the prison started to get sick, and _he knew what to do_.

Daryl could do this, he _could_.

He had made up his mind to look after Judith and goddamn if he wasn't looking at this as some kind of test, to put him through the paces, sink or fail at this raising a kid thing.

The big question was whether to muscle on to Suches, which still lay several hours away, or to find shelter immediately. By the looks of the map that was now folded up on the dash of the van, the nearest town should be only a few miles away, not even five or six. Track down a pharmacy and a place to crash and get them through this. Judith was suffering and he didn't want it to go on any longer than it had to.

…

Like most in rural Georgia, the town of Medaryville was _small_. The kind where most businesses- grocery, pharmacy, hardware store- had been in the family for fifty plus years, houses were rundown but well tended on a basic level and there were more bars than churches.

The van crept into town, drawing the attention of lingering walkers anyway, and shuttered to a stop in front of the brick-face corner building that housed what was once a pharmacy. The front window with _Daywalt Pharmacy _scrawled across it in frosted letters was cracked in three places, but the glass pane of the door had been shattered, leaving only a metal frame.

Daryl left the van running in case they needed to make a quick get away, even though it would suck the gas, and pulled Judith from the passengers seat. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep about a mile away from the town and only stirred softly with a frown on her face when Daryl brought her to his chest. He knew that the walkers that had spotted them on their drive through town would eventually catch up so he would have to make it fast.

He had no idea what kind of medicine had been given to the sick people at the prison, and he didn't know if it was even safe to give to a baby. So he looked for the basics- acetaminophen, cough suppressants, chest rub. Those shake 'em til they're cold ice packs that he once used on a busted up ankle, to try and bring Judith's fever down. Daryl snagged a plastic bag from behind the counter and searched the already picked-through aisles. He found a few bottles of children's Tylenol, a little blue and green tub of chest rub, but no cough medicine or ice packs. Frustration rose up inside of him like mercury in a thermometer, but there was only so much he could do. Daryl let the bag hang from one arm, supporting Judith with the other, petting a hand down her back. He bounced slightly as he headed back toward the van but as he stepped through the busted door frame he had to pick up the pace. Walkers were closing in, moving slow and making guttural, hungry sounds. He drove with Judith still cradled to his chest, white and red plastic bag rolling across the passengers seat.

…

There was a small subdivision of cookie cutter homes on the very outskirts of Medaryville. Someone's bright idea to modernize the town, but it didn't look like they'd gotten very far. Five houses in total with room for twenty more stretched out over ten blocks worth of dead ends and round-a-bouts. Construction for a sixth and seventh had been abandoned, either before or after the world ended, Daryl had no way of knowing. What drew him was the house closest to the highway, the one with the kids toys littering the front yard. Kids had once been babies, right? Maybe whoever lived here before had kept some of that baby crap, and if they did, Daryl needed it.

The house was two story, sage siding with white shutters. The roof was still in good shape and the place must have only been built three or four years before it was abandoned. Judith was still asleep and the door was unlocked when Daryl tested the knob. The plastic bag from the pharmacy hung from his elbow, Judith's bag on one shoulder, his bow on the other and a pistol stuck in the back of his pants. He dropped the bags by the door and shifted the sleeping baby to his left shoulder while he unshouldered the crossbow with his other arm, just in case. A complete sweep of the house proved it to be empty and Daryl took inventory; three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room, attached garage. He took stock of the exits- three; front door, back door off the kitchen and through the garage. The house had obviously been raided and crashed in, drawers were hanging open, kitchen cabinets bare and it looked like someone had trashed the living room just for the hell of it. Couch cushions were torn off, pictures were smashed on the wall, bookshelves were upended on the floor.

Daryl didn't give a shit.

He gathered the bags from the front hall and locked himself and Judith in the bedroom with the attached bathroom. She was still sleeping fitfully so he laid her on the queen sized bed and surrounded her with pillows. Judith whimpered and scrunched her face up but settled back down after only a few seconds. Daryl took a moment to try to breathe. It felt like he hadn't taken a full breath since the prison, since that morning before the attack, when he'd woken up in Beth's cell bunk before the sun, slipping away without waking her to get back to his own before anyone noticed that he was gone. He'd kissed her shoulder, slipping her tank top strap out of the way and she'd smiled in her sleep.

It had only gotten worse; since the Exxon, where two tight bands, made of the iron in her spilled blood, wrapped around his chest. They'd been slowly tightening every since. Daryl was dizzy with it, with that horrible heavy emptiness, but he didn't have the luxury of dwelling. He'd done enough of that in the dank gas station bathroom, which really, was probably why Judith had gotten sick in the first place. He couldn't remember how long they'd been there, her breathing in the mildew and wet.

He sure was off to a _great_ start with this parenting thing.

Daryl shook his head and double checked the lock on the bedroom door before moving a high-backed arm chair in front of it. They were safe for the time being, as long as he could get them through whatever it was that was going on with Judith. He was keeping the panic at bay and trying to do the same with the worry, because he couldn't afford to lose it again. Upending the pharmacy bag onto the low dresser, Daryl picked out the chest rub just as another coughing fit stole over Judith, startling her awake. Her crying was painful, for the both of them, and Daryl changed her as quickly as he could, using the last of the disposable diapers. The onesie she had been wearing was a lost cause but thankfully there was still a small stack of clean ones in her bag.

The label on the Tylenol bottle was confusing as fuck; Daryl had no idea how much Judith weighed, but he knew that it had to be way less than the options listed. _Not for use with children under the age of two. _

Well... fuck.

It wasn't like he had any other option, though, so he cut the smallest dose in half and after a small tussle got the sticky, red medicine in her. Daryl scrubbed his hands in the bathroom sink before smearing a glob of the foul smelling rub over her tiny chest. Every time she took a breath, something deep in her lungs rattled and it sent fear like lightning jolting through him. Daryl just hoped that what he was doing would be enough.

…

It was nightfall when Judith woke again, feverish and fussy and Daryl fixed her a bottle to work on while he drew a shallow, tepid bath. It was something his momma used to do for him when he was a kid, whenever he'd get sick with a fever. Granted, more often than not she'd forget that he was in there and he'd have to climb out and find his own way back to bed, but it was a tried and true method of bringing a fever down. Judith only drank about half of her bottle before she threw it away from her and started screaming again.

The bath didn't make her any happier but Daryl muscled through it. He washed her hair with a small dab from the half-full bottle of shampoo he found under the sink and sponged Judith with the rapidly cooling water until it turned just plain cold. Once he'd figured his way around a cloth diaper and dressed her in a clean onesie and got her dosed up, he began going through the drawers and closet of the room he'd locked them in.

It had obviously belonged to the couple who had lived here with their kids _before_. The room was mostly gender neutral with dark woods, cream and navy colors. Family pictures were scattered across the high pile carpet from where they'd been swept off the low dresser. The frames were intact and Daryl just pushed them under the dresser with his boot. Kids art and wedding photos hung on the walls, but Daryl left them without really looking too closely. The years scavenging on the road had wiped out any guilt he may have felt over going through dead people's things; if he were really honest, he probably wouldn't have had much guilt to begin with. Daryl had always done what needed to be done to survive, unpleasant as some of those things may be.

The guy that had lived here had been bigger than Daryl- taller, broader in the shoulders, but he wasn't picky and he found a few pairs of jeans and a drawer full of clean tee-shirts. Women's clothes were folded in neighboring drawers, so they must not have had an opportunity to pack any of their things before they took off, or more likely, were taken _out_.

The people who had owned this little slice of suburbia...they weren't survivors.

Daryl had been wearing the same clothes since the prison and he needed a shower something fierce. He made sure that the door and windows were secure and that Judith was sandwiched with pillows on all sides before retreating to the bathroom. The door remained ajar and he cranked both taps open, knowing that it would be about as warm as a glacier. Any remaining gas in the lines to the water heater had been used for Judith's bath.

Daryl reached into his back pocket and pulled out his red shop rag and Beth's tank top. His fingers played over the dried stiff, once soft cotton as he laid it on the edge of the sink and had to blink away the sudden sting in his eyes.

When his momma died all those years ago, it hadn't felt real. At least, not right away. Mostly because there hadn't been a body left to bury, and he hadn't been able to _see _that she was dead, with child eyes. But this- Beth. It was real. He felt it in the very marrow of his bones. She was gone. There was no body for him to bury this time either, but he didn't need one. He and Judith had roamed the woods around the prison for almost a solid week and Beth wouldn't have given up on either of them- he would have found her, or she would have found them. There was no body, but that was _so much blood_ and he just- he _knew_.

Daryl scrubbed a hand down his face and peeled his filthy flannel off, tossing it in a corner and marking it a lost cause. He barely felt the cold when he stepped into the shower, and let the water beat down over his bent head. It dripped from his hair and down into his eyes and now would be the perfect time to let himself cry. No one could see- he would barely be able to tell himself.

But he couldn't.

Too much hung on his strength now. He had more responsibility than he ever had and even though he'd failed Beth, it didn't mean that he would do the same with Judith. He pushed it back again, let the cold of the water and those two iron bands wrapped around his chest seep into his bones, and locked his shit down. Because it's what he'd always done, and what he had to do now.

He scrubbed his hair and beard with the same shampoo he'd used on Judith and found a bar of soap in a decorative dish on the sink, washing until his skin felt dried out and tight. But when he stepped out of the shower, he didn't feel any cleaner or lighter. He left dirt and blood on the white porcelain tub floor, but he could still feel it soaking into his skin. Daryl doubted that the filth and gore he imagined staining his skin would ever come off at this point.

The stolen jeans hung dangerously low on his hips, so he retrieved his belt from his discarded pants. A gray tee-shirt was loose around the shoulders but the cotton clung to his still damp chest and it wasn't too bad of a fit. He tucked his shop rag and Beth's shirt into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled on a clean pair of socks before curling up next to Judith on the bed.

It took Daryl a long time to fall asleep.

But then, that wasn't new.

**0-YLP-0**


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